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Monday, August 30, 2010

In the summer of 1959, my father, mother, 9-year old sister (known much later as Auntie Bucksnort), and I traveled across the country in our family's yellow and white 1955 Chevy BelAir. One of the highlights of the trip was a reunion with some of my mother's sisters and their children, up at a summer camp on Little Sebago Lake in Maine.

My childhood friend, Carole, just sent me a collection of letters that I had written to her over the years. There, in my 14-year old handwriting, was a description of a memorable night with the cousins.

My letter, written in the summer between my freshman and sophomore years in high school

It said, in part:

I'm on the road again, this time in Maine. We just left a cabin out in the woods where we had a reunion of my mother's family. All [actually, some] of my cousins were there and I hadn't seen them since I was three.

The cabin had a darling attic with a ladder leading up to it for the teenagers. Last nite we snuck down when all the grown ups were down at the lake (which is in the back yard of the cabin--the lake was named Little Sebago--really huge) and took a gallon jar of do-nuts and a great big can of cookies which we made that afternoon.

What a feast! We pulled the ladder up after us and you should have heard our aunts (they're all old and fat) scurrying around, looking for the food. Of course, we wouldn't come down when they figured out where the cookies were. We just told 'em they would have to shinny up the pole to get us--and that's just what my father did.

So they took away the ladder and wouldn't let us down to go to the "back house" all night. ("Out house" to Californians). We just yelled all night, "Mum, puleeze send up a slop pot for me! Please..." Then, "Oh, oh, you'll be sorry..." etc.

They finally let us down in the morning. Honestly, we were really glad to see that stinky old back house.

The cousins: Marilyn, Ruth, Janie, Edi, and me. Vangie and Ginnie were there, too, but not in this photo. Notice the pincurls; that's what girls did to their hair at night in those days. That is the 1955 Chevy our family drove cross country--there weren't many big highways back then, so it was an adventure undertaken with map in hand

The stinky back house, with our rather substantial swim suits hanging up to dry

2 comments:

Can you tell that I'm struggling with the fonts in Blogger--again?! I would like all the print to be the same size and easy to read, but there it is, going big and small and doing whatever it pleases no matter what I tell it to do. Does anyone else ever have this problem?

This looks like my sisters all lined up in the pin-curled hair! What a nice gesture from your friend, sending you the letters you wrote as a girl. What a treasure.

And the pin curls? Well, LaLa and LadyDi, my two closest-to-me-but-older sisters were told that they couldn't go to the dance one night because they refused to curl my hair for me. They decided to split the task; as I sat in the chair, LaLa did one side of my head in curlers. At the same time, as they were chatting and being silly, LadyDi was putting pincurls in the other side. I was quite a beauty the next day!

How can you tell when you've written a good post? When the commenter is spurred on to write her own in the same vein...in her comment, not her own blog! Anyway, I really enjoyed this post!

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About This Blog

This blog is my gift to our children, the descendants of the Crabb(e), Crabtree, Ellis, Giberson, Grant, Harris, Healey, Joy, Kinney, Mallozzi, Rankins, VandenBoom, and Zarges families. Our relatives came from England and Ireland and Scotland and the Netherlands and Italy and Germany and Canada; they came by horse-drawn wagon, by boat, by train, and by airplane. Somehow we all ended up in New Mexico, California, New York, and New Hampshire.

I have pictures, I have stories. I have genealogical records and first-hand accounts. I have a great desire to share them with you, my family.

About Me

Who knew that retirement would be so much fun? I loved working with kids and books and technology as a school librarian, but now I love having time to get together with friends, and to enjoy walking, going to the gym, taking photos, reading, researching, blogging, knitting, and gardening.